I think it's pretty sane and ok to be very upset about that first game. That game pissed me off.

Being upset about the first game is not the same as saying "Oh my gosh, the whole season is going to be like this!" That game yesterday was absolutely horrible. It doesn't matter if it was the first game, last game, or anywhere in between. The Wings simply did not show up. We can use every excuse in the book, but at the end of the day they lost. The Blues did not have any sort of special attention, they didn't have anything extra that the Wings didn't have, as far as knowledge or training. The fact is the Blues beat us. If you watched the game, they beat us bad.

The concern of mine is: Why didn't the Wings show up? Why was it not the other way around (Wings shutting out the Blues)? The Blues didn't bring any excuses for winning. The Wings looked like a minor league team playing an NHL team. It was very bad. That is a perfectly just cause to be angry.

The game is behind us now, so we have to look forward. I know the team is better than the way they played yesterday. But I'm still upset that they came in and played that poorly for game one. They could not get a steady possession together to make anything happen. The defense failed us and the offense failed us. It was overall just a bad team effort. I'm no hockey expert, but it's tough for me to point at any position or player and say it's that person's fault. The whole team sucked. Although, in my opinion, I must say Jimmy Howard sucked the least, and I believe the reason they swapped goaltenders was just to save face for Howard and attempt to give the team a second wind. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

From here, we can see the following about Franzen:- 29 goals (team leader)- 27 assists (4th)- 56 points (4th)- +23 (tied for first)- team leader in PP goals and game winning goals- 13.7% shooting percentage (3rd on team)... he has a lot of shots too, but who cares as long as his shooting percentage is 3rd on the team, we can't really say anything

Consistent or not, the facts do not lie. This guy is a beast. He puts up great numbers. I don't care if all his points come in the first and last games of the season and every game in between he gets nothing. He puts up the numbers. Could he put up higher numbers if he was more consistent? Absolutely, he would go down in history as one of the best to play, ever.

I get so confused when people talk trash about Franzen. It's nice to be treated to a game here and there with a hat trick. He has a few hat tricks and even more 2-goal games.

I hope this guy stays with us for much longer. As someone else said in this thread, if he left he'd probably end up with the Blackhawks and score a hat trik against us. I don't want that happening.

EDIT: I'm not saying that scoring goals is all that makes a player good. At the end of the day, the team with more goals wins. The hard numbers at the end of the game are what is going to win a hockey game most of the time. Franzen has 10 game-winning goals. Can you imagine if we did not have Franzen? We would have had 10 fewer wins, at the very least. That is pretty significant.